


The Prince of the Fort

by frosting



Series: Once Upon a Tomato (Hetalia Fairy Tales) [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Astronomy, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Magic, Romance, Technology, The Princess of the Fort Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15052427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frosting/pseuds/frosting
Summary: In order to escape an unwanted and persistent suitor, Prince Ivan retreats to an isolated mountain fortress. All he wants is to study the stars and build his satellite in peace, but his father has other plans: he wants to marry Ivan off for land and money. To avoid marriage, Ivan creates three nigh-impossible challenges that any suitor must overcome before winning his hand in marriage; the price for failing any of the tasks is death.Ivan is confident that no one will ever get past his obstacles and that he will never marry. He never expected Alfred, the young adventurer who blasts through all his defenses.





	The Prince of the Fort

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is based on the story “The Princess of the Fort,” from the book _The Seven Wise Princesses_ (retold by Wafá Tarnowska), which is based on the Persian poem _Haft Paykar_ by medieval poet Nizami. 
> 
> _The Seven Wise Princesses_ is a picture book I’ve had for a long time, and “The Princess of the Fort” was always the tale in it that stuck out the most to me (there are seven separate tales inside one narrative story), so when I started writing fairy tale AUs for Hetalia, this was a story I wanted to write a lot (｡･ω･｡)

There was once a prince named Ivan who was as pale as the moon and as tall as a cypress. His hair was fine and silver like spiderwebs and his eyes were deep purple like the evening sky. He was known throughout the kingdom for being rather creepy and for his skill in fighting with an unusual (and somewhat absurd) weapon: a water pipe.

Prince Ivan’s passions were space and astronomy. He had read all the books he could on astronomy, quantum mechanics, and engineering, and his dream was to be the first to put a man-made satellite in space. 

He would have been happy to do nothing but study space in his father’s palace for the rest of his life, and most people were all too happy to let him do so. But unfortunately, he had one persistent pursuer: Princess Natalia of the neighboring kingdom. She chased Ivan everyday, hindered neither by stone gates nor by locked doors. 

In order to escape, Ivan went to hide in a castle on a high mountain, which he converted into an observatory and lab facility. He built a high wall around it and placed a thousand cursed automaton guards with giant swords along the mountain path to keep Natalia out. 

These security measures finally thwarted Princess Natalia. She sulked about the foot of the mountain, muttering to herself and promising to one day climb the mountain, but she was never able to get past the automatons. Meanwhile, Ivan was perfectly content to live and study in his observatory, accompanied only by a few servants and his cursed automatons. (While Ivan admired the sciences, he also excelled in dark magic and curses.)

Ivan’s father and king, infamously known as General Winter, was a greedy and power-seeking ruler. He entered wars often, and as a result his army had been dwindling for decades, and his empire had become stretched thin over enormous territory. In his old age, he decided that he couldn’t keep fighting wars. Instead, he would procure more land and power through marriages of other rulers into his family, combining kingdoms until he ruled over them all. So he sent a letter to Ivan demanding that he return home and take a royal bride.

Ivan was not entirely oblivious to his duties as a prince, so he reluctantly agreed to marry. But Ivan was also cunning and sneaky, so he declared that he would only marry someone if they could (1) get past his automaton warriors and arrive safely at the high wall, (2) find a hidden entrance to the fortress and get inside, and (3) solve four riddles that Ivan gave them.

“And if they fail any of these tasks,” Ivan wrote to his father, “they will lose their head. Kol kol kol.” (Yes, the creepy laughter was written in the letter.)

General Winter was annoyed at his son for making his marriage plan complicated, but he also approved of the bloody and violent courtship obstacles, so he agreed. But General Winter was also cunning and sneaky, so he had a portrait made of Ivan that greatly exaggerated his beauty—and was enchanted to bewitch the viewer— and had it hung on his gates along with a sign describing the trials one would have to face to win the hand of the kingdom’s prince, copied from the prince’s letter. General Winter also promised a large cash prize and a small palace to his future son/daughter-in-law.

Princes and princesses, nobles, and even commoners from other nations flocked to the kingdom, filled with curiosity and desire for the prize, only to be bewitched by the portrait. Many a suitor tried to approach the castle, only to be quickly defeated by the cursed automatons. The heads of those unlucky people were mounted on the palace gates as a warning.

And up on his mountain, Ivan continued his research, uncaring of the lives being discarded below. He had eyes only for the stars.

And then one day, he successfully launched the first satellite.

* * *

Across the sea was another large country, where there lived a young adventurer named Alfred who was sun-tanned and strong enough to carry a horse. His hair was like flaxen wheat and his eyes were light blue like a cloudless sky at noon. He was known throughout the nation for being obnoxiously headstrong and for excelling at unarmed combat.

Alfred also had a passion for space and astronomy. He, too, had read all the books he could on astronomy, quantum mechanics, and engineering, and his dream was to be the first person in space. 

But unlike Ivan, Alfred was not confined to a single place with nothing to do but focus on his dream. He liked to travel, and he was also easily distracted, so he never settled down long enough to build his own satellite. But he still followed the scientific field avidly.

Which is why he was understandably interested by Ivan’s achievement.

“Dude!” Alfred exclaimed when he saw a newspaper article titled: ‘Isolated Prince Puts First Satellite In Space.’ “Who is this guy?! How did he do it?! I’ve gotta talk to him!”

And so Alfred immediately packed his bags and got on the next transoceanic flight. When he arrived in the cold northern kingdom, he began asking around for the prince.

“Haven’t you heard?” a commoner asked him. “Prince Ivan lives in the high castle on the great mountain. His father will give a large prize to anyone who can overcome the prince’s guards, gates, and riddles, and claim his hand in—”

“So where’s this mountain?” Alfred interrupted impatiently.

“Wait! Many men and women have already lost their lives trying to reach the castle! You will surely die!”

“No I won’t,” Alfred declared. “I’m the hero! Heroes never die!”

At this point, the commoner decided that Alfred was an idiot beyond hope, shook his head, and walked away.

But however obnoxious and unreasonably stubborn Alfred was, he also loved challenges and didn’t shy away from bloodshed and violence. And he could be pretty smart when he put his mind to it.

So Alfred did some research on his obstacles. A few lost suitors hung around the palace gates, too scared to confront the warriors but too bewitched by the portrait to leave. They told Alfred about the obstacles up to the castle.

“They’re automatons, but they’re magic,” one man said, shaking and shivering with fright. “They move faster than they should and if they so much as scratch you with their long swords, you die.”

“And there’s no visible door in the walls,” added one woman. “I looked at them from all sides with a telescope—it’s all solid rock and metal!”

“And even if the automatons don’t get you,” another man whispered, “Princess Natalia certainly will. She hates having rivals.”

Alfred frowned and thought for a while. The guards were bad news for him because he was bad with magic and he couldn’t fight well with swords or blades. If he tried to fight the automatons unarmed, as was his specialty, their longer reach would certainly doom him. If there were no doors in the walls, Alfred supposed he could dig under them or bring a pick ax and go through them, but that would be annoying, and he would need to get rid of all the automatons before starting. And who knew if Ivan could make more on demand.

But Alfred was a good cheater, so he realized another way to beat the obstacles and flew back home. He was not compelled to rush into the challenge because he had never bothered to look at the portrait, and thus had never been enchanted by it.

Back in his own kingdom, he bought a hot air balloon and apprenticed with a master pilot to learn how to fly it. Alfred was a quick study, and after a month, the pilot said, “I have nothing more to teach you,” and gave Alfred his hot air balloon piloting license. 

Alfred returned to the northern kingdom with his hot air balloon and spent a few days documenting the wind patterns of the area. On the fifth day, he set up his hot air balloon before dawn near the foot of the mountain, well out of the way of the automatons. Just as the sun peeked up and he was preparing to lift off, however, Natalia lunched out of the brush and attacked him.

“Cheater!” she screamed. “You cannot have him! He’s mine!”

“HOLY SHIT!” Alfred screamed. After spending so much time prowling the foot of the mountain, Natalia was dirty, bedraggled, and pale, and Alfred mistook her for a ghost. He whipped out his anti-ghost blessed-pepper spray and spritzed her with it. While she rolled moaning and screaming in the dirt, he urged his hot air balloon off the ground as fast as he could.

“Oh thank fuck,” Alfred sighed as the world shrunk below him. Disaster averted, he returned his attention to piloting his balloon. The hardest part of piloting a hot air balloon for Alfred was waiting and trusting the wind to take him where he wanted it to. He turned on the torch periodically when he needed more altitude and kept an eye on the wind, but other than that all he had to do was wait.

Eventually, the hot air balloon reached the same elevation as the castle and the wind currents pulled the aircraft closer. But just as the hot air balloon was approaching the castle, Alfred spotted a silver glint and turned toward it.

There on one of the castle’s turrets was a silver-haired man with a sniper rifle. 

“Crap!” Alfred yelped as three shots rang out. At least one of the bullets pierced the balloon, tearing holes in it and letting out the hot air. Alfred jumped out of the basket as the hot air balloon began to descend. Luckily Alfred was wearing a parachute and had his trusty tool belt on. He released his parachute and pulled out his grappling hook and threw it to catch on the wall, using the line to pull himself closer to the fortress wall. 

When he reached the wall he unbuckled from the parachute, letting it fall down on the automatons below, and used his grappling hook and spiked climbing gloves to scale the wall. It was hard work that had Alfred sweating heavily, but finally he made it to the top of the wall and found a castle window to break into.

“Infiltration successful,” Alfred whispered to himself as he landed in a quiet corridor. 

Before he could take another step, however, a squeaky voice called out from down the hall, “Oh my god, someone made it!”

Alfred turned to see a short brunette staring at him with wide, admiring eyes. Alfred put on his most charming smile while subtly taking a defensive stance. “Hey there!”

“Oh thank god,” the boy breathed. “Someone finally made it. Maybe this hell will end.”

“Huh?” Alfred relaxed his guard.

“I’m Raivis,” the boy hurriedly introduced. “I’m one of Prince Ivan’s servants, along with Toris and Eduard. Come with me, you should eat and rest before Ivan finds out you made it in.”

The boy quickly turned and scurried away, and Alfred followed him with long strides. The corridors they traveled were dark and cold, the torches on the walls unlit and dusty. “I thought there’d be more people,” Alfred commented, hoping fervently that the castle wasn’t haunted with ghosts.

“No, it’s been just the four of us for a long time,” Raivis replied. “Ivan only took us along with him to keep the castle from falling apart while he works. He spends all his time in his room, in his observatory, or in his lab, and he talks to himself more than he talks to us. He’s really scary and this place is really creepy! I hope you can solve his riddles, because we really want to leave!”

“All he does is work? That doesn’t sound so scary.”

“You’ll figure it out when you see him,” Raivis muttered lowly. “He either looks like he’s seeing everything you’re thinking or he looks like he’s looking right through you and you’re not even there. And the way he smiles, oh god, I nearly piss myself every time.”

Alfred shrugged. It still didn’t sound all that scary to him.

“Also, the outhouse here is really cold and probably haunted.”

Alfred shivered. Now that was a good reason to leave.

Raivis led Alfred to a small, brightly lit room, seemingly the only warm place in the entire fortress. The walls were draped with heavy curtains and blankets, and a fire smoldered in the fireplace. “This is where the three of us live,” Raivis said. “Here, have some soup—I’m afraid it’s all we ever have around here.”

Soon after Alfred began eating the thin soup, the other two servants returned to the room. One of them was tall and blond and had glasses, while the other was shorter (but still taller than Raivis) and had wavy, chocolate-colored hair and earnest green eyes. The three servants told Alfred all about their time in the castle and about their prince.

“So what you’re saying,” Alfred concluded, pushing his empty bowl away and propping his cheek on his fist, “is that Ivan’s going to make this as hard as he can for me because he doesn’t want to leave here.”

He received three vigorous nods in reply.

Alfred smirked. “Well, that just makes me want to beat his challenge even more.”

Raivis, Toris, and Eduard exchanged worried glances. “It’s your own neck on the line,” Toris reminded Alfred. “Literally.”

“We should wait until tomorrow to take you to him,” Eduard said. “He usually spends all night looking through his telescope, and goes to bed in the morning. If we catch him before he goes to bed, he’ll be tired and his riddles will probably be easier.”

“No way,” Alfred frowned. “I don’t want to solve half-assed riddles. I want to beat him at his best, so he knows that I’m his equal.”

Raivis, Toris, and Eduard now exchanged alarmed expressions. “Oh no,” Raivis whimpered. “He’s crazy too.”

“If you don’t take me to him now, I’ll just find him on my own,” warned Alfred.

“We’re all gonna die,” Toris sighed, but compliantly got up and led the way out of the room. Eduard and Raivis stood up, visibly shaking, and followed Alfred and Toris as the group paraded down the corridor. 

Outside the arched windows, the sun was setting behind distant mountains and the sky flushed a glowy red. 

Out in the observatory, Ivan watched the sky and thought about the quickly approaching twilight.

Approaching the observatory, Alfred glanced at the sky and thought that it was a pretty color—the color of adversity, passion, and triumph.

Toris stopped before a door into the turret that had become Ivan’s observatory and turned to Alfred. “I’ll go announce your presence. He’ll probably send me back with a riddle.”

Alfred pouted. “I can’t just talk to him myself?”

Toris shook his head. “Nooo, that’s a bad idea. Just wait here.”

He opened the door and slipped through, closing it solidly behind him, then took a fortifying breath and headed up the stairs.

“Prince Ivan,” Toris began hesitantly as he stepped into the observatory. “It’s me, Toris.”

“Yes? Do you want something?” Ivan asked without looking away from a star chart.

“Er, you know the man in the hot air balloon you shot down earlier?”

“Oh, yes, that was very satisfying,” Ivan said dreamily. “Did you find his splattered remains and send the head to Father?”

“Well, um, no. Because he didn’t splatter. I mean, what I mean to say is—he’s here.”

Ivan finally turned around. His purple eyes narrowed and he pouted childishly at Toris. “What do you mean he’s here? Toris.” The temperature in the cold room dropped noticeably lower.

“He’s, er, waiting for the first riddle,” Toris muttered, glancing back at the exit.

Very carefully, Ivan put down his chart and pencil and turned to fully face Toris. “Well, that’s unfortunate,” he said slowly. “I don’t have a riddle ready for him. How silly of me!” He giggled, high pitched; it was somehow scarier than his ominous “kol kol kol” laugh.

Toris shivered.

“But that’s okay,” continued Ivan, “I’ll just make one now.” He grabbed a nearby notebook and a spare piece of paper, took a pen, and quickly scribbled a long line of numbers and letters. “I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give him twenty four hours to solve it,” Ivan said sinisterly. He handed the paper to Toris and flapped a hand to shoo him away.

Toris bowed jerkily and fled from the room, not stopping until he had reached safety outside of the turret. He slumped against the door with relief.

“Well?” Alfred demanded expectantly. “What’s my riddle?”

“I don’t know,” Toris said shakily. “He gave me this to give to you. He says you have twenty four hours to solve it.” He handed over the paper.

Alfred examined the seemingly random numbers on the page and laughed. “That’s clever!” he exclaimed. “But don’t worry, I’ll crack this in no time. I don’t even need twenty four hours—I’ll finish before the sun comes up.”

The group retreated back to the warm room, and Alfred commandeered a table and a stack of paper for his work. At first, Raivis, Toris, and Eduard watched with interest as Alfred drew grids and diagrams and filled them in with letters and numbers, but after a few hours of the same behavior, they grew tired and fell asleep beside the fireplace.

Toris was awakened before sunrise by Alfred’s insistent shaking. “Hey, get up!” he said excitedly. “I solved it, and I need you to give him my answer!”

“What? Already?” Toris asked blearily.

“Yes! Get up, lazy butt!”

Grumbling, Toris staggered upright and accepted the piece of paper that Alfred forced into his hands. He stared at it blankly. Alfred’s message was a list of numbers, just as Ivan’s riddle had been. “You know that if you got it wrong, he’ll chop your head off, right?”

Alfred put his hands on his hips and laughed. “I got it right,” he said confidently.

Toris sighed. “Okay, I’ll take it to him. But can’t it wait until after breakfast?”

“No, that’s fine, I’ll eat breakfast while you take it to him.”

Toris started to protest, but decided not to clarify that he had wanted to wait until _he_ had had breakfast. _This guy must be pretty socially oblivious_ , he thought as he started heading to the observatory.

When he got to the observatory turret door, he once again took a fortifying breath before opening it—only to come face-to-chest with Ivan himself.

“Agh! Prince Ivan!”

“Good morning, Toris,” Ivan greeted with a fake smile. “Did you need something?”

Toris thrust the paper at Ivan and backed up quickly. “He said to give you that!”

Ivan stared at the paper with a strange expression, then reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a notebook. He opened it to a certain page and looked between it and Alfred’s note for a long moment. Then suddenly he grinned and giggled.

“Interesting!” he said, sounding genuinely amused for once. He tore a blank page out of the back of the notebook and wrote more numbers. “Take this back to him,” he told Toris when he finished, handing over the new message.

“Uhm, okay?” Toris agreed hesitantly. He had never seen Ivan look so happy with anything other than his space project. Not wanting to risk a sudden mood swing, he scurried back to the others quickly. He opened the door without knocking and entered with a dazed expression.

Alfred bounded up to greet him. “Well?! Well?!”

Wordlessly, Toris handed him Ivan’s second message. Alfred snatched it and skipped back to his table.

“Ha!” the servants heard from him a short while later. “He didn’t even bother to use a new code!”

Another while later, they heard furious scribbling. Then Alfred dashed back over to them. “Super easy,” he said smugly and handed a piece of paper to Toris.

“Why do I have to take it again?” Toris asked, his tone halfway between exasperated and fearful. “You take it, Eduard!”

“No, he likes you best,” Eduard argued, pushing the paper back at Toris. 

“How about I just take it to him?” Alfred said eagerly, reaching to take back the paper.

“NO!” all three servants yelled in unison.

“Fine, I’ll take it,” Toris sighed and ran out of the room before Alfred could try to take the paper back.

Since Ivan had left the observatory, Toris went to his bedroom. In Toris’s opinion, this was the worst place to approach Ivan—not that that was saying much. One risked provoking the tall prince’s wrath whenever one approached him, because he was always busy or didn’t want to be bothered. But at least if Ivan was in his observatory or lab, he was easily distracted from his bloodlust by his research. His bedroom offered no such distractions, and waking him up was an unthinkable horror.

It also didn’t help that Ivan’s bedroom was just plain terrifying. The rest of the castle was cold and cool-colored, made of gray stone and decorated with blue and white tapestries and furnishings. But Ivan’s bedroom was covered in red carpets and cloth. When Toris had asked about the decor, with much stuttering and deference, Ivan had explained, “Red is such a warm color! And everyone wants to fall asleep warm, yes?”

Personally, Toris thought Ivan had an obsession with blood, but he wasn’t going to say that aloud.

Toris prayed for his life and knocked on the thick wooden door with a childish handwritten sign on it: ‘Prince Ivan’s Super-Secure Lair—No One Else Allowed!!!’

“Prince Ivan?” Toris called softly. He raised his fist to make the lightest of possible knocks on the door, but to his surprise, it opened immediately. 

Ivan stared down at him with smile that Toris had never seen on him before. It looked… hopeful. “You bring me his reply, yes?”

“Y-yes,” Toris agreed, hurriedly giving him the folded note. Ivan unfolded the paper, looked it over, and laughed. Not his fake, saccharine giggle, or his threatening, low-toned ‘kol kol kol,’ but an honest, belly-deep laugh. Toris froze in shock, his mouth open and his eyes so wide they hurt.

“This is getting fun!” he said. “Wait there, Toris.” He retreated into his room. Toris wouldn’t have been able to move if he’d wanted to, he was so surprised and unsettled by Ivan’s abnormal behavior. 

After a short moment, Ivan returned with another folded note. “I’m not going to bed for a while,” he said as he gave the third message to Toris. “You can find me in the library.”

Toris swallowed nervously. The library was _much_ closer to his and the other servants’ room than any of Ivan’s usual haunts. Toris, Raivis, and Eduard had deliberately located their sanctuary on the opposite side of the castle from Ivan’s quarters.

“O-okay,” he squeaked, then turned and fled back to safety, chillingly aware of Ivan’s more sedate pace behind him. When he reached their room, he slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, breathing heavily for a moment.

Unfortunately, Alfred couldn’t recognize and respect his need for a moment of peace. He immediately blundered into Toris’s personal space, demanding, “C’mon, give it! Give it! Man, this is super exciting!”

After some pawing, Alfred found the paper in Toris’s fist and tugged it out of his grasp. “Yes!” He fistpumped and took the note back to his table.

“I can’t do it again,” Toris whispered unsteadily. “I can’t. I can’t keep being the pigeon. Eduard, it’s your turn next time. He’s in the library.”

Eduard blanched. “The library?! He hasn’t been in the library in forever! Hasn’t he already read all the books there?! What is he doing?! Oh god, he’s plotting all our deaths, isn’t he?! Isn’t he?!”

Raivis whimpered and threw his arms around his head, curling up into a little ball. “We’re dead, we’re dead,” he moaned.

“Will you cut that racket out?” Alfred asked from across the room. “Trying to solve riddles over here! Have some respect for your hero!”

The three servants wailed slightly quieter. Meanwhile, Alfred frowned over his decoded message. “Hm…” he hummed. “Dark matter? No, that doesn’t make sense….” He muttered to himself for a few minutes until a revelation brightened his eyes. “Oh!” he exclaimed, smacking his right fist into his left palm. “It’s the kind of riddle Arthur likes! The ones that look like they’re about something but they’re actually about the words! Now it makes sense!” Alfred let out a triumphant crow of laughter and wrote something down on a fresh piece of paper.

“Toris! I’ve got my reply!” Alfred said.

“No, it’s Eduard’s turn,” Toris muttered, slouched in an armchair. “I’ve risked my life enough today.”

Alfred shrugged and passed the note to Eduard, who fumbled with the paper, almost dropped it, then gathered himself. “Okay, you can do this,” he whispered to himself as he left the room.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Raivis asked in a thin voice.

Toris shrugged sadly.

“I really don’t get why you’re so terrified of this guy,” Alfred said with a frown. “Is he really so bad?”

“You’ve never seen one of his mood swings!” Raivis countered. “One day he’s smiling that weird smile and hugging everyone to death and saying that we’re all his friends. Then the next day he does nothing but glare at us! His eyes get scary and the air around him turns purple and he pulls out his water pipe and he _tries to kill you_! He’s almost killed me seven times!”

“I’ve almost been murdered twelve times,” Toris moaned. “And also he’s a real handful to deal with. Once he ran out of vodka and the next vodka shipment got delayed by a snowstorm, and he was so drunk when he found out that he tried to jump off a tower to go get it himself! We had to try to restrain him and he beat us all up!”

“And even when he was a kid,” Raivis added, “he made every kid he met cry because he would threaten them or push them or stare at them with his creepy smile!”

“He’s not human, he can’t be,” Toris whispered. “Because he can’t understand humans. He insults people and hurts their feelings without noticing, he snaps people’s bones without trying, and he’s never sorry about any of it!”

Just then, the door banged open and Eduard threw himself inside. “Oh my god,” he wailed. “Oh my god, he’s in a _good mood_. It’s terrifying. I just kept waiting for him to snap and go back to normal and throw his water pipe at me. The suspense almost killed me!”

“Oh, get over it,” Alfred said, rolling his eyes. “The way I see it, you’ve been here with him how long? Years, by now? If he was actually going to kill you, he would’ve already. Anyway, do you have another message for me?”

Eduard shakily handed it to him. 

Alfred took the paper back to his table, quickly decoded it, and frowned. “This one’s harder,” he remarked. “There’s not a lot to go off of. That can’t be literal… so it’s a metaphor? Hm….”

The three servants watched apprehensively as Alfred pondered over the puzzle. “Please get it right,” Raivis whispered. “I don’t want to be here anymore!”

Alfred rubbed his chin, squinted at the ceiling, then leaned back in his armchair with a huff. He closed his eyes and muttered to himself, arms folded across his chest and fingers tapping on his biceps. Toris, Raivis, and Eduard waited with baited breath.

Finally, Alfred’s eyes snapped open. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I think I got it.” He snatched a blank sheet of paper and scribbled something down. “Where is he?” he asked. “It’s the last riddle, I might as well tell him the answer myself.”

Toris jolted. “Uhm, he’s in the library. We’ll show you the way.” He grabbed Raivis’s and Eduard’s arms and dragged them with him out of the room and down the hall, though the other two whimpered and dragged their feet.

The group halted outside two large double doors, which Toris hesitantly knocked on and opened. Alfred leaned eagerly Toris’s shoulder, and his eyes immediately caught on the man inside.

From Toris’s and Raivis’s descriptions of Prince Ivan, Alfred had expected a tall man with a sharp face and suspicious narrowed eyes, his body and posture and clothes all sharp lines. But that was not what Alfred saw. 

The man before him was a couple inches taller than Alfred and did indeed have a powerful frame, but nothing about him was hard or sharp. Rather, his chin was round, his cheeks were soft, and his mesmerizing purple eyes were wide and child-like. A pastel pink scarf looped around his neck and flowed over sturdy shoulders. His long, tan overcoat was worn and had a gentle line, and his leather gloves and boots were scuffed and creased but well oiled and flexible. When the man lifted his head, his expression was a mixture of curiosity, wariness, and hope.

Ivan put down the book he’d been reading and turned fully toward the unfamiliar man with his servants. The stranger was tall, though still a bit shorter than Ivan himself, and glowed with brightness in comparison to the dull gray of the castle, despite being dressed mostly in browns. He wore an aviator jacket with a furred collar and sensible but plain woolen pants tucked into black combat boots. But what stood out most about him was his head. His hair was a bright blond that seemed to reflect the meager light of the room, and his blue eyes glinted with determination behind thin-framed rectangular glasses.

Ivan didn’t really understand things like attractiveness or good looks, but he found himself attracted to this man because he seemed warm. No, not just warm like Toris and Raivis and Eduard were, but hot, simmering, radiating heat. 

Suddenly, a glint of color caught Ivan’s eye. There, below the man’s neck, was a visible sliver of his red shirt. Ivan smiled at the color, then met blue eyes once again. 

“Have you figured it out?” Ivan asked.

“Yup,” Alfred said, walking right up to Ivan without hesitation. Toris, Raivis, and Eduard exchanged terrified glances. “Here’s my answer.” He thumped the paper against Ivan’s chest and held it there until Ivan took it and unfolded it.

Then he burst out laughing. “You’re correct!” he exclaimed between giggles. “But I wouldn’t have known it from the picture without the label—you’re not a very good artist.”

He turned the paper around to show it to the others. On it was scribbled a messy creature only identifiable as a bird by its stick legs and triangular beak, and below it were the words: “A rooster.”

“Uhm, Prince Ivan,” Toris began hesitantly, “I’m happy that Alfred got all the riddles right and nobody’s head is being chopped off, but can you explain exactly what went on between the two of you?”

Alfred put his hands on his hips and laughed. “Of course we can!” he said proudly. “The first riddle Ivan sent me was a code. He used a straddling checkerboard cipher with a codeword, ‘SNOWFALL,’ and a transposition table, which is super clever! Luckily for me, I was into codes when I was younger and learned a whole bunch about them. When I decoded the message, it said, ‘Idiots that fly too close to the sun get burnt.’

“I recognized that he was alluding to that old myth about Icarus, so I replied, using the same code for encryption: ‘But those that fly too close to the sea get heavy wings and crash.’ And then I asked if that counted as two riddles.”

Ivan nodded in agreement. “My second riddle, I used the same code. I wrote, ‘At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen.’ This man—Alfred, did you say?—correctly answered: ‘The stars.’ ”

“The third riddle was, ‘I am the beginning of the end, as well as the end of time and space. I am essential to creation and I surround every place,’ ” Alfred continued. “That confused me for a bit. But then I realized it was a word riddle! I have a friend, Arthur, who really likes word riddles. The answer to this one was the letter E.”

“My last riddle,” said Ivan, “was, ‘Not a prince by birth, but wears a crown.’ ”

“Yeah, that one was the hardest for me,” Alfred laughed. “Short, not much to go off of. I figured out that the ‘crown’ bit wasn’t literal, but like a metaphor, so then I tried thinking of all the animals I could with things on their heads, and a rooster seemed to fit best.”

“Wow,” Raivis said in an awed voice. “That’s pretty amazing.”

“Yup! It was definitely a fun challenge.” Alfred pushed up his glasses and turned back to Ivan. “Now, as for what I came here for—”

Ivan smiled. “Yes, the reward. Don’t worry, my father will give it to you as soon as we are married.”

Alfred frowned. “Wait, married? Who said anything about marriage?”

A sudden stillness settled over the room.

“Alfred, you _did_ know that these challenges were for suitors seeking the prince’s hand in marriage, didn’t you?” Toris said slowly.

“Uhm, no? I mean, I heard there was a reward, but I didn’t—”

“Well then,” Ivan interrupted. Alfred glanced at him nervously. The silver-haired man was smiling again, but this time his eyes were cold and his smile was too wide but didn’t show any teeth. A murderous aura started to gather around him. “If you’re not a suitor, there’s no reason not to kill you, is there?”

Now Alfred knew what Toris and Raivis had meant by ‘creepy smile’ and ‘purple aura.’

Alfred held out his hands in front in him in surrender and placation. “Wait, let me explain—” He ducked just as a water pipe swung through the space where his head had been a split second before.

“You’ve ex- _plained_ e- _nough_ ,” Ivan singsonged childishly as he advanced. “It was just for the money, right? Get-rich-quick schemes seldom succeed, you know.”

“No, I—” Alfred dodged another swipe. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, so Alfred turned and ran. Fast footsteps followed after him. Alfred turned randomly, searching for an open area, and eventually found himself in the castle’s courtyard, where he turned to defend himself.

“Stop this,” Alfred grunted as he parried a strike of the water pipe away from him. As he blocked, parried, and dodged, he observed Ivan’s form. His swings were fast and strong, but the real power of his technique came from his footwork. He was tall enough that he could take big steps quickly and without becoming off-balanced, allowing him to advance quickly and smoothly without being sloppy.

“Hm… nope!” Ivan said. Although he was smiling that closed-mouth smile and speaking in a high-pitched voice, there was no happiness in his expression. Instead, Alfred saw only anger and loneliness.

Finally, Alfred had had enough. “Listen to me!” he yelled, ducking and stepping in to deliver a block-strike to Ivan’s upper arm, then grabbing, turning, and throwing the other over his shoulder. He held on to the arm and quickly pinned Ivan to the ground. “I didn’t know about the marriage thing, but I wasn’t here for the reward, anyway! I came because I wanted to talk to you about your research!”

Ivan’s struggling ceased and his eyes widened, confusion blanking his face.

“I’m not after the money! I’m just super into space, too! I figured you’d be cool to talk to, so I came here. I thought the challenges were interesting, and the riddles were fun. Also, you’re a really good fighter! Now that I’ve met you, I think you’re awesome and I want to get you to know better. I don’t feel comfortable with marriage right now, but I’d like to be your friend.”

“Friends?” Ivan repeated. He stared at Alfred with something lost and hopeful in his gaze.

“Yeah, friends. If I let you up, will you promise not to attack me?” When Ivan nodded slowly, Alfred got off him and pulled him to his feet. “How about we start by chatting about your satellite? I’m super curious about it!”

Slowly, Ivan smiled.

* * *

And so Alfred stayed at the fortress. He and Ivan gradually became close friends as they talked, sparred, exchanged jokes and riddles, and went over the data from the satellite together. Ivan, who had always desperately wanted friends but inadvertently scared them off, found someone who made friends easily and was defiantly unafraid of the things most people cowered from. Alfred, who had always struggled with certain social niceties and whose overabundance of energy often drove people away, found someone who could meet him blow-for-blow and relished in his sunny excitement.

All the while, Toris, Raivis, and Eduard watched in bewilderment.

In time, Alfred and Ivan even grew to love each other. It was a subtle slide—neither could identify exactly when their relationship had shifted from friendship to romance on the relationship continuum.

But one day, in the middle of dinner, Alfred paused, put down his burger, and announced, “Hey, Ivan, I really like you, so we can get married now.”

Ivan smiled mildly. “Yes, that sounds fun. Let us get married in the fall when the leaves are red.”

“Okay, sure,” Alfred agreed. “But let’s do it over at my place.”

“Fine,” Ivan said. The two of them went back to eating. 

The three servants boggled at them. “Wait!” Toris said, louder than he usually raised his voice. “That wasn’t a proper proposal!”

Alfred stared at him blankly. “I though all the trials of getting up here and not dying was the proposal? So like, I already proposed, we just put off a decision.”

Eduard facepalmed. “There should at least be rings,” he muttered into his hands.

“Later,” Ivan said serenely.

* * *

In the summer, when some of the snow around the mountain had melted, the prince finally came down from his fortress. He, his betrothed, and his servants with all their luggage marched down the mountain, and the cursed automatons parted before them. 

When the reached the bottom, Natalia tried to ambush Ivan, but Alfred once again mistook her for a ghost and sprayed her with his ghost repellent, and the group of five ran all the way back to the king’s palace and locked the gates behind them.

They had an audience with the king, where Ivan announced his decision to marry Alfred.

The old General Winter rubbed his gnarled hands together with satisfaction. He said to Alfred: “If you have completed all the challenges my son presented, then you may marry him, and you will also receive the reward. But first, you must give him and his family a dowry in the form of a formal alliance and trade agreement with your kingdom.”

Alfred scratched his head. “Eh, I can’t really do that… See, my country is a democracy, not a kingdom.”

General Winter’s hands stilled. “What.”

“Y’know, democracy. Leaders elected by the people and stuff? Checks and balances in government? All that jazz. So, y’know, I’m not a prince. I am the son of former president, though!”

“Then you are disqualified!” General Winter roared. “This arrangement was only for those of royal blood!”

Ivan, wearing a faux innocent expression, raised his hand like a sheepish schoolboy. “Father, I created the challenge,” he said cheerily. “My requirements were that the suitor get past the guards, get inside the castle, and solve my riddles. I never said anything the suitor needing to have royal blood.”

“No, but _I_ said so,” General Winter argued.

“I never heard about that,” Alfred said. “Are you sure you put it in the instructions on the gates?”

The king paused. He had been a hurry making that sign, so he had mostly copied down Ivan’s instructions that had been written the letter. Realizing this, he switched tactics. “Whether or not I made it clear that only those of proper birth were allowed to court my son does not matter. The suitor still needs my approval, which I do not give to this union.”

“But Daddy,” Ivan whined, “I’m a legal adult now. You don’t get to control my life.”

“I am your king, and you are a prince!” General Winter said vehemently. “You will do as I say!”

“That’s no fair!” Ivan pouted. “I’m defecting!”

“You what?!”

Just then, Natalia burst through the grand, golden double doors. She had recovered from the pepper spray and followed her beloved to the palace. Neither guards nor gates nor locks had successfully barred her way. “Ivan doesn’t belong to the king or to that cheater,” she said in a gravelly, dehydrated voice. “He belongs to me!”

Alfred decided to take advantage of the distraction (and escape route) Natalia had created. He yelled, “The king is trying to keep Ivan all to himself!” When Natalia flew at General Winter in a fury, Alfred grabbed Ivan’s hand and they ran out the door. Toris, Raivis, and Eduard followed them because even though they were still a bit afraid of Ivan, they were more scared of Natalia.

Alfred, Ivan, and the three crying servants ran for the docks. “We don’t have time to get plane tickets and wait for the flight to take off,” Alfred reasoned aloud while they fled, “but we can hide on a ship and stow away when it leaves. Man, I wish I still had my hot air balloon…”

“A hot air balloon wouldn’t make it all the way across the ocean anyway!” Eduard screamed.

As they were running through the port, drawing many bewildered gazes and knocking people out of the way, Alfred’s eye caught on a familiar flag. “Quick! That ship!” he said and changed course, dragging Ivan behind him. They leaped aboard and landed in front of the startled captain.

“Bloody hell! Wait… Alfred?”

“Arthur!” Alfred cheered. “Dude, I’m so glad you’re here! We need to get out of here, pronto!”

Arthur scowled at him, but Alfred knew that he wasn’t actually that mad because they had known each other for years. Alfred had a boy when he had met the sailor and adventurer with the weird eyebrows, and he had looked up to Arthur as an older brother. Arthur did some trade and transoceanic delivery to make a living, but mostly he sailed because he liked it. He had facilitated some trade between Alfred’s country and his own kingdom, which was how the two had met.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here, and what the bloody hell is going on?!” Arthur snapped.

“We’ve got bad guys after us,” Alfred said. “Me and my fiancé and his formerly indentured friends need to get out of this kingdom or his dad’s gonna kill me! Please, Arthur?”

Arthur spluttered, but Alfred was giving him the puppy dog eyes, and he had always been weak to the puppy dog eyes. He sighed. “Fine. You all can hide below deck, and I’ll take you back. But I need to finish my business here, and I also need to get more rations if we’re all going to survive the trip. Go, get yourselves in the hull. We’ll leave as soon as we can. But once I get back from my errands, you have some explaining to do, Alfred F. Jones!”

“Thanks, Arty! You’re the best!”

Arthur sighed again, but once all five of his unexpected guests were below deck, he smiled. “Well,” he said to the flying green bunny on his shoulder, “this smacks of an adventure.”

* * *

The next day at dawn, Arthur’s small ship, the _Queen Victoria_ , set out. Alfred explained all that had happened to him during the past several months, and Arthur agreed to take them all back to Alfred’s country.

The trip was several weeks long, and the six of them were squashed together on the rather small ship, but somehow they survived each other. After some false starts and misunderstandings, Arthur and Ivan had gotten along and chatted together about dark magic. Toris, Raivis, and Eduard eventually got over their crippling fear of Ivan, since they were forced to be in his close vicinity for an extended period of time and he no longer acted like he would kill them at a moment’s notice.

The days at sea were filled with ghost stories, adventure anecdotes, bad jokes and puns, and boisterous laughter. Arthur would never admit it, but it was the best trip he’d had in a long time. He’d forgotten what it was like to sail with a crew instead of on his own.

By the time the crew reached land, summer was ending. As soon as the ship was docked, Alfred dragged Toris, Raivis, Eduard, and Arthur along with him and Ivan to rent a car, and he drove them all to his brother’s house. Matthew was surprised to see them and spent several minutes whisper yelling at his brother (“Alfred, no one’s heard from you in months! We were really worried! And who are all these people?”) while Alfred laughed off his chiding with practiced ease. 

“Someone better explain what’s going on, eh,” Matthew finally huffed, and his guests began their winding recount of recent events, full of interruptions and digressions and contradictions.

He listened to their story with wide, astonished eyes. When it was finally over, he laughed weakly. “Sounds like you’ve all had a crazy adventure, eh?” he said. “I’m really happy for you, Alfred.”

“I’m happy, too,” Alfred beamed.

* * *

Ivan and Alfred got married in Matthew’s maple orchard in autumn, under the falling red leaves. It was a wedding that rocked the nation. Alfred invited too many people, Arthur delivered the service drunk off his ass, the reception was interrupted by Natalia, who had somehow made it overseas, and the entire affair devolved into a chaotic brawl. 

And that was only the beginning of a legendary relationship. 

Alfred was known for being obnoxiously headstrong; Ivan was known for being rather creepy. Together, they were the country’s No. 1 power couple, leaders in space exploration and accidental celebrities. They bamboozled everyone they met with their bizarre but unbreaking bond. One moment they were excessively sweet and cuddly, the next they were at each other’s throats; that was just how they functioned. But they were content that way. 

And so Ivan and Alfred continued to love and fight one another until the end of their days.

**Author's Note:**

> The cipher Ivan uses in this story is based on the VIC Cipher that was used by Russian spies in the 1950s. The FBI failed to decode it for four years until a defected Russian intelligence officer helped them out. I’m still pretty confused about how the cipher works, so I kept my description of it in the story as vague as I could (^ω^;;)
> 
> The rooster puzzle Ivan uses is a Russian barnyard riddle, which I found here.


End file.
